


Canis Borealis

by StrayLupum



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bottom Jason Todd, Denial of Feelings, Feelings, Feelings Realization, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd is Robin, Jealousy, Lazarus Pit, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mercenaries, Mercenary Red Hood, Mercenary Slade Wilson, Origin Story, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Parent Slade Wilson, Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Slade Wilson, Red Hood origin, Resurrected Jason Todd, Rose Wilson is both cute and awful, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Training, he is robin just in the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:06:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26815573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrayLupum/pseuds/StrayLupum
Summary: Watching the night sky is like witnessing the murder.The time has passed, and the stars are dead already, but you like the bright memory they left for us.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Slade Wilson
Comments: 20
Kudos: 117





	1. Delta Ursae Majoris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of this fic is pretty old, I've been thinking over it for about a year. Now, when I'm inspired and encouraged to write, I'm free to tell this story.
> 
> [Delta Ursae Majoris - in Arabic Megrez, or Kaffa, meaning: ‘the base’]

Their first meet is strange and just a bit terrifying. The major emotion Robin experiences - excitement. He is excited to face one of the greatest Batman’s foes, the one-eyed immortal mercenary, Deathstroke.

“Bat’s recruiting kids to do the dirty work. Nothing’s gonna change under the moon.”

The mentioned moon doesn’t want to lose its cloud cover, and thus there’s no light except the city lights to brighten up the tall figure in dark-yellow armor, with the only eye socket in his helmet.

His blade sparkles, but Robin is a brave bird, and he knows he can fly away whenever he wishes.

He is not afraid to come closer, to smile in response and jerk his head. He is brave enough to sound cocky, to pretend to ignore there’s a firearm too — on Deathstroke’s belt, and the rifle seen just above his right shoulder. 

“He’s too busy to pay attention to the dirt under his feet.” The boy walks around confidently as if it’s not the edge of the roof a few inches from his feet. His smile seems to never end, and the domino mask makes his face look more villain than it is supposed to. A little dancing devil.

In Wilson’s opinion, Grayson kid was not this reckless.

The former Robin learned every lesson of being careful, and now Nightwing is not seen in Gotham at all.

“How old are you, kid? Nine? Ten? Aren’t ya supposed to watch cartoons, drink some milk with chocolate cookies and go to bed already?”

“While you’re walking outside, trying to rob and steal, and killing people, and doing all that interesting stuff? No way I’m going to sleep.” Robin smiles wider when he makes finger guns and shoots Deathstroke with invisible, nonexistent bullets. “Bad guys, heads up!”

Slade Wilson grins though it’s not seen under his helmet.

This kid’s funny.

***

“You have your right to remain silent!” Robin’s somersaults are gracious and accurate. His actions are not the actions of the previous Robin, he doesn’t inherit the humane attitude Bat usually tries to teach.

Oh, no.

The kid enjoys his strength and agility, and his young body is able to escape the clumsy attempt of the burglar to grab him. Dancing around, the green flash of night Gotham laughs and gets the shaking hands of the criminal into handcuffs.

Slade likes this Robin because this kid is a whole different species. He’s not, and will never be a part of the Batfamily.

Knight of Gotham has made a mistake if he thought the boy’s going to behave.

Little green devil, he is on his own.

And he doesn’t share the blind belief in justice, which can be a good base for growing up in an adequate independent person.

“...Big B didn’t tell me you’re a stalking pervert. Enjoy the sight of children’s ass in tight pants, ol’man?” Robin’s glance is unreadable, but his wide smile is wild, his teeth glisten as two rows of pearl. His low kick is perfect, and his high kick is too strong, because in the next few seconds the caught burglar is spitting his own teeth off.

“Big Bat won’t like that.” Deathstroke doesn’t want it, but it is his own professional hazzard, and a quick examination of the bruises the kid has left tells him that very soon the guy will find the process of urination pretty painful. Looks like Robin trained some riverdance on the burglar’s kidneys.

“He won’t know, will he?” Robin steps forward, showing himself. He doesn’t have a real weapon, at all. Just a couple of smoke grenades, one more pair of handcuffs and the rope gun. Batman’s insane if he’s sure it’s safe to let a child walk around the night city in this costume, with no weapon and full of audacious silly ideas. “You didn’t answer about the children’s asses, asshole.”

Yes, Deathstroke is thinking exactly about this kid’s grin.

It’s not the right place for children at all, this shitty Gotham.

And Batman finds reasons to send the kid for night street patrolling.

Does the Knight want to really save the city or he is just enjoying the awfully bad performance of the broken kids lives he has gathered? Just like a circus of a madman.

Slade Wilson doesn’t believe he himself is saint, fuck no. But he is an honest mercenary. A man of truth whatever the truth is: blood stained or reeking of shit.

“I’m not a pervert, kid. And your ass is too bad even for a pedophile.” There’s no fear, no concern when Slade’s hand reaches his belt to take off the tactical dagger. Robin doesn’t shift, doesn’t change his position.

He’s just staring with...something under the white-eyed mask.

Interest? Naive trust?

No way, Slade’s sure the boy isn’t naive at all. Not with his attitude during the simple arrest.

“Take it.” Robin accepts the dagger. Black steel, perfectly balanced short-blade thrower. “It’s a pity to see a kid walking around defenceless. My old heart can’t take that.”

In the child's hands the thrower looks too serious.

Too martial.

Distant combat sounds, the explosions, flashbacks of the hundreds of deaths under the heating sun strike him down when Robin loses his smile and sighs heavily. Slade remembers every kid he saw while he was a mere soldier at the Far East war.

Children should not face that shit.

Never.

“You will go on stalking me, right?”

“I’m not stalking. I’m taking care ‘cause it seems none’s going to do that for any orphan. And since I’m an old man, as you say, I have a weak spot: I hate it when orphans are forced to do the dirty work.”

“Talking like you’re not a fucking killer.”

“I’m not a killer for just killing, kid.” Slade watches the boy shiver under the cold wind. He definitely needs to change those short pants for something more protective. It’s ridiculous. The mercenary nods towards the beaten burglar. “Don’t tell me about good and bad stuff. We both know it's bullshit.”

Robin smiles again.

He is a clever boy.

***

Dagger in his thigh is that particular one he gifted to the kid several months ago. Pulsating, in slow and rhythmic thrusts his blood finds its way outside, wetting his armor, making a puddle under his feet.

“I thought you look older.” Robin squats and takes the yellow-black helmet off. Slade doesn’t look his 77 at all. Black hair, short black beard. Only symmetric grey strands on his temples suggest Wilson’s older than 30. “Bat’s going to be here soon. Any last words?”

“And _you_ never looked suitable for the job you’re doing, Jason Todd.”

Bloody grin frightens Robin a bit, but he tries to gather his thoughts and not let himself be provoked. Mercenaries, especially those ‘ _cool ‘n tough_ ’ ones like Wilson have always had more information than they showed, more data, more details about anyone or anything in the world.

It is their bread and butter, their earning — to know.

Jason shouldn't have to know that, but he heard Batman come to that ugly guy holding a nightclub. Cobblepot, some such, a guy with a dreadful appearance called Penguin. He’s not a law-abiding citizen. But an information seller.

A mercenary with different tactics, different principles of work.

“You look too alive for the one with blood lo— Oh, fucking Jesus, what the hell?!”

Dagger is not in Slade’s flesh anymore, and the blood is not flooding now. Like there has never been any wound. But the puddle and dark stains remain to assure Jason their short fight didn't take place just in his head.

How adorable, with a strong concentration of tired hatred and a bit of irony, thinks Wilson getting on his feet and throwing the ropes away. If Batman thought the kid could arrest him, the Knight was a total idiot. Wrong thought, though. If the Big Bat was that fool, he'd never become the night terror for some of the shadow business. But still it seems too silly for the one who invented all those tech supplies. Being a really honest person, Slade finds the weapon row, suits and devices pretty nice.

Most likely, Bat remembers Slade’s weak spot on children. The Bat-daddy just wants his adopted son to be under someone’s care. What a hypocritical move. One day the kid will see the truth, and he won’t be grateful at all. 

As for now…

Slade doesn’t mind Robin’s company, this boy is interesting. Not Greyson with his quotes from the Bat Bible.

“Super soldier serum gives me some time to think over my last words, kid.” Jason doesn’t even try to keep the helmet when Slade takes it from the boy’s hands. “You can’t hurt me even if you throw an a-bomb on my head.”

“W-what?!”

Adorable, again.

Batman didn’t tell him.

The night wind takes aways few blood drops when Wilson returns the dagger to the confused young vigilante. He is in his short pants again, shivering, only enthusiasm and gamble nature warming Jason up.

“Next time you better put on something more…suitable for this season. I don’t want to be caught by a snotting kid.”

“Screw you, ol’man!”

***

Next time Robin is in his short pants again.

His face is covered with blood, bruises, and the boy has been unconscious for a very long period.

“Bat’s pretty bird was too careless...”

Yes, Robin is careless.

But it’s not his fault.

“...little birds should not hunt the bigger birds!” Joker comes closer to set the TNT under the chair Jason is tied up on. The timer shows two minutes. Batman has no chances to come earlier, he is not able to prevent Jason’s death.

But _Slade_ is here.

“So, you say there’s a contract between you and Ra's?” The mercenary crosses hands on his chest, examining Robin’s body. Too traumatized. Too broken. But if Ra's al Ghul allows them to use his Pit, everything is alright.

Just too much shock and pain for one child, but they say _'no pain - no gain'_. Robin needs this knowledge, he needs his own truth. He needs the lesson, not from Batman.

Despite the fact Slade is sorry for Jason to die, he is also sure, it will do only good.


	2. Gamma Geminorum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gamma Geminorum - in Arabic Alhena or Al Han'ah; meaning: ‘the brand, the mark, the scar’

The explosion comes just when the timer makes the last ‘pe-ep!’ and takes a pretty short pause. Jason opens just one eye – the second one is numb, eyelids seem to be super heavy and swollen. He sees nothing, the world so blurry to give any hint where the fuck he is.

And then his only eye becomes blind, his watery faint world explodes and sinks in multiple flashes, it burns awfully, his skin is embraced by the blazing supernova, and then his mind, just as his life, falls into the cold darkness.

The very last thing to remember before he passes away – the laughter.

Again the world assembles from the sharp pieces in the cold and still, amongst pillars of light; zero gravity is a greatest relief to feel. The new world to meet him is green, endlessly green and rich in images of various kinds. Some of them formless, calm and quiet; and some are loud, they approach, get closer and closer, and it takes several eternities to pass before Jason can recognize human features.

“...Pit never fails...”

“...alive...”

No air, no oxygen, and no hunger for breathing Jason feels while trying to realize the environment.

Aural part of the universe so descent to reach, however so calming in its presence.

No thoughts. No weight his body has, but at the same time the sleeping energy is felt, and it requires just a bit more, the micropart of the universal eternity, to be fully charged, to reach its peak and then burst with...something.

“...Demon’s Head..”

“...too far… To do with...”

Jason wants to reach the other side of his existence so badly. His hand seeks for the borderline, tries to probe where his own Looking-Glass ends…

In a blink of an eye the world of semi-dark images transforms into the high ceiling of the perfect white color. Jason doesn’t understand he is lying on some horizontal surface with his right hand stretched upwards, like if he’s been calling for someone standing too far.

This white ceiling – his ticket to the real world, to the outer reality. Jason knows he has returned from some place, a strange one and pretty secret, but his own mind resembles the plaster cover: white and pure, no prints of the past to ruin the virgin void.

The air he inhales tastes pretty sweet, with a slight trace of the citrus sour note.

It is a room.

An empty one, if nobody is close to him, and nobody to appear in his sight when Jason takes a seat in the bed he has woken up. It’s not the big room, but there’s enough space to accommodate a single bed, a couple of old fashioned chairs, the coffee table and the bigger work desk of dark red wood. Probably, it costs a lot.

Probably, everything here costs a lot, but what is ‘here’ and where actually it is located - Jason doesn’t know. The window behind his bed locks the sight of the outside with the curtains, and Jason feels...his first emotion about the place he finds himself in.

The fear.

Then comes confusion, a sharp and cruel one, it causes huge weakness in Jason’s knees when he gets up and makes his first steps to the door.

To his surprise – but if the boy could analyze his own feelings properly, he’d doubt if it’s a real surprise – he’s not left naked, whoever left him here. A simple cotton home pants and cotton T-shirt on him, the clothes are fresh and comfy, and smell like the tasty perfumed fabric softener.

Clinging to this scent as if it’s his anchor of the concentration, Jason pulls the door and it doesn’t try to keep him in. Instead, the wooden door with a non-squeaking locking mechanism offers him a walk down the passage, a soft dark-red carpet under bare feet. The hall is a bit darker than the room with a curtained window, but it’s only because of the lack of windows.

Though, the walls are not empty, and the hallway doesn’t make an impression of an unfriendly home. Few paintings hung on the walls on the both sides, nothing special, but a simple calm still life.

But it’s not Wayne Manor. 

“...nah, it’s too thin...”

“Pretty gracious, isn’t it?”

“Grace means nothing against utility.”

Voices, at least two people are here! Jason rushes into the spacious bright room only to see a familiar face, but it’s not the one he’s hoped to see.

Actually, Deathstroke the Terminator is the last one Jason expects to meet in this strange circumstance of his mystery awakening with no memory about the past...hours? Days?

“Hey, buddy!” The second faceless voice shows up as a tall grey haired woman; she leans forward and a bit down to look into Jason’s eyes. Her smile and her glance create a strong contrast of sincerity and hidden menace. “Slept well? Hungry?”

Before he even tries to find a response, the woman puts away a long rapier, rich forging decorates the hilt, it glistens with gold and copper colors.

All the words Jason knows hit him at once and pile in his throat, unable to find their way out. He can say nothing, simply looks from the woman to Wilson and back. And tries to do his best to return the control over his body, but fails. And his fail is so visible, the shudder strikes him, unexpectedly and harshly.

“Whoa, buddy, you’re shivering like a tiny scared mouse!” Warm woman’s arm holds him by his shoulders and pulls towards, closer to her. She smells just a bit sharply: some mix of vetiver, cilantro and something else, more spicy. “Let’s get you something sweet and warm to drink! And you–”

She throws a narrowed blue-eyed glance to Slade who – by Jason’s next level of surprise and confusion – doesn’t try to argue with her.

“...re-read the dictionary and recall some soft words. The kid’s frightened! And your ugly ol’face doesn’t help!”

Then she leans to Jason again and leads him to a kitchen-like island in the eastern part of the room. Actually, it can appear it’s not the eastern part of the house or whatever Jason is met by a strange company in, but an attempt to remember any details and get those structured inside his head soothes him.

“I’m Rose. You can call me whatever is convenient to you. Rosie, Ro, Roz – really, whatever, buddy.” With a wink Rose steps to the kitchen table and grabs an old-looking box with a semi-transparent cover made of glass. Putting the box on the table in front of Jason, she starts shifting around: switches the electric kettle on, finds a round huge mug, jar of honey and even a bottle of milk. “Pick up the tea you like most. You’ve had no food and drink for a whole week, I guess you feel awful without something tasty, dont’ya?”

The small tea bag is squeezed with a crinkly sound by Jason’s thin fingers when Rose’s words reach his mind.

_He didn’t have food for a week?_

“What the hell’s going on?” Voice is soft and broken, hoarse because of the long disuse. Jason can feel it, his soaring vocal cords. With more words spoken his throat feels more scratchy, and he can’t help coughing. “What… What the hell, Wilson?”

The only eye of the mercenary narrows as he takes a seat opposite Jason. After a short sigh he tries to catch a visual contact with Rose, but he has already taken Jason’s tea bag and started making the drink.

Only then Slade decides to speak.

“What’s the last thing you remember, lil’ bird?”

Is there any trick? Like, doesn’t it all look like a strange freaky show? Jason’s sitting at the kitchen table, having sweet (almost) talks with a mercenary, Batman's enemy. And that woman, Rose, resembles a person Jason’s seen already…

Batman.

The word-trigger pulls a row of the images, it’s like a fish hook: once it gets into Jason’s inner world, then there can’t be a painless way back. 

“I – ” The boy looks straight at the flat wooden surface of the table, recalling everything he is able to pick up from the chaos of thoughts. “Dick wanted to see me. I was going to meet him, the South coast. I was going there and something...” Jason frowned. Why couldn’t he get to the meeting? He’s sure he didn’t meet Dick on that day. “Next I saw green lights and… And I’m here.”

Rose puts a mug full of tea, almost into Jason’s hands; the drink is orange and cinnamon, with a teaspoon of honey. She takes a seat near Slade, shoulder to shoulder, and still Jason cannot remember who she looks like.

“Drink, buddy. Trust me, if we were to poison you or to kill, you wouldn’t have woken up.” Rose pokes Slade’s side with her pointy elbow. “I told you to find soft words! Ol’prick!” She rolls her steel-blue eyes up. “Look, Jason, right? Cool name, I love it. Well, Jason, do you love tales?”

“Tales suck.”

Rose giggles and offers him to drink the tea. Indeed, the hot drink warms his body up, his head clears as she goes on.

While Wilson remains silent, examining Jason’s face.

“A tough guy, aren’t ya? Well, let it be a cool one for a cool guy. Once upon a time in some city lived a super tough boy, a superhero's sidekick. He was so cool and self-confident, he arrested burglars and killers, and my heart was just ready to give up to him. But one day a wicked clown wanted to hurt the superhero of that city. He kidnapped the boy and killed him with a loud KA-BOOM! But! There also was an old one-eyed pervert...”

“ _Rose_.”

“Alright-alright. Well, there was an old one-eyed guy who sympathized with abandoned kids and took the corpse – or whatever remained after the KA-BOOM – and asked one demon guy to resurrect him for some amount of money and valuable information. Guess, who’s the resurrected kid?”

Eyes forget how to blink, his glance froze caught by the frowning expression Deathstroke has. Without his mask his emotions are so obvious to read, even for Jason, _especially now_. Lines of the face become sharper as Wilson grits his teeth.

Jason calls for his own feelings and finds nothing.

Logic, the tiny remnants of the analytic ability, tells him in an insecure voice that they can’t be serious. If Jason has died, then he could not sit here with them, right? Jason Todd, Robin, is not meta, he is not a super-anyone. Just a street rat taken under Bruce’s protection to grow up and become _somebody_.

He is mortal, just a human.

In his thirteen Jason realizes what death is and what are the consequences of it for a mortal human. Nothing, void, just non-existence.

“Bullshit...” The spit word is a bitterness of the orange peel. “That’s bullshit… B must be looking for me, he can’t… He just...”

Green flashes under the shut lids tell him it may not be just a bad dream. Those flames, the cold waters and ‘ _Demon’s Head_ ’...

His body feels like thrown to the heat and the cold at once, sight unfocused, hands shaking.

The explosion.

The laughter.

Joker with a crowbar…

Heart skips a beat, and then twists in spasms, it hurts as hell; Jason curls up in a high bar chair, breathing brings him only pain. After slamming the table with his forehead the world around loses its usual calmness. Something is ringing inside his head, or it’s outside – hell knows.

Maybe it’s his own blood pounding in his ears. Feet tingle, thankfully he is sitting, not standing. When Rose gets near him in two jumps, Jason can see her disfigured, like looking through a fish-eye lens.

“C’mon, buddy, breathe with me. One-two, in, ‘right? One-two...”

“What will happen to him when he learns that Bat’s already found a new Robin?”

Rose’s grip on Jason’s shoulder tightens, and in the next second her voice is a thunder piercing through the breaking reality. Actually, her scream finished the world and the light off for Jason. He just has a little moment to capture _‘new Robin’_ before passing out in Rose’s arms.

“Fuck you!” She takes the unconscious body of the kid and checks if his pulse started to level off. The panic attack is a pretty normal reaction to the shit the boy survived. Well, not actually survived, but still… “You’re a total fucking mess! First you can’t hold back and ignore the one more kid in green shorts, now you can’t fucking bite your fucking tongue!”

Her cheeks burn in red tones, as the angry and furious mood overwhelms. She didn’t vote for this fucking idea of rescuing the kid, but then she also didn’t want Slade to ruin the gentle child’s mental state.

“Why the fuck you’ve decided it’d be great to take him?!”

Slade is sorry for everything. She knows that.

But she can’t retreat and not rub his face in what he has done.

“You know why. I… Don’t make me go through this shit again, Rose. Help him. And help me help the kid.”

Her father, it’s just her father. The guy who went through the war and who got tons of shit on his head, tons of shitty loads on his shoulders. But why the fuck is he always seeking for more? She is far from understanding. Even being more human than him, she is just too far.

But not far from the family. From the misery shit left for both of them.

“He will try to escape. Batman gave him home and family.”

“You’re wrong at this point. He gives only death to all those Robins he catches on the street. If the kid escapes, he will find death only. And next time there won’t be anyone to resurrect him. No one to be by his side.”

“Wanna show him _that_? Too cruel, isn’t it?”

“Cruel, not _killing_.”

***

Next time he is awake, Rose gives him a tour over the house.

It’s huge.

Huge and light, and Jason admits to find it comfortable.

There are just two floors, and his room as long as the kitchen and the smaller living room are located on the upper one. Here is Rose’s room, and one of Slade’s two bedrooms.

“He’s just fond of personal space, Y’know, those guys after the war with their personal issues.” She twirls her finger at her head and goes further, to the stairs. Rose always smiles at him, she pretends to be kind – Jason’s sure, she is not a simply kind nature. But he doesn’t even try to talk to her about it. Instead, he tries to remember every detail, every single corner of the house.

The stair platform is a small balcony, standing there Jason can examine the ground floor. It has the common ceiling with the second one, and it makes the first floor living-room look sort of loft style. Everywhere wood and stone, and the huge windows of the first floor almost reach the balcony.

Outside – endless trees of all kinds: coniferous and deciduous, broad and narrow leafed, tall and short, bushy and thin as a skeleton. And the sky. Blue-blue sky, cloudless, the sun throws its beams through the window to dance over the furniture.

“Sometimes Vic sleeps here, he just doesn’t have any variant to stay in Gotham. Oh, you’ll like Vic. He’s a nice pal.” Rose leans to his ear and whispers in a conspiratory manner. “Way funnier than the one-eyed prick. But – sh! – I didn’t tell you that.”

Walking around the house is strange.

Like, does he have a right to relax? But Jason reminds himself, he’s not doing that to relax, he doesn’t give up that easily. He just needs to gather information, details of his imprisonment. Everything Bruce taught him returns, finds its way back and settles down as the environment becomes clearer.

He can escape. There are no bars on the windows, no dogs, no fence around the territory.

He knows the location, approximately, and that’s enough.

Jason escapes at night, just breaks the window in his room when he’s told Slade went on a mission. A new contract, Rose said.Jumping from the upper floor to the ground is not an easy task, but Jason would not be Robin if he could not manage that. Fallen leaves soften his every step, and he hides amongst the trees. He already knows where the cemetery is, he knows how to get to the city from there, and then… Bruce will take him.

If he is lucky enough, he won’t meet anything too scary and dangerous. Well, he can always climb the trees and jump, his body is trained well, and muscular memory works properly, more or less.

With the frosty autumn air Jason inhales his freedom and hope. He doesn’t believe Slade. It’s an obvious trap, the old pervert wanted to sell him, to do something, to gain profit. Deathstroke will regret telling lies, about kidnapping him! Bruce won’t let him go unpunished, Bruce will protect him!

_But where’s Bruce now?_

Jason stops to lean to the tall oak tree and catch his breath. The house of the fucking killer is far away from now, he ran pretty fast.

The venomous voice in his head doesn’t leave him.

_If Bruce cared about his Robin, why didn’t he save him from Joker?_

“There was no Joker.” Jason murmurs and keeps going, the cemetery is already here. “The tea, it was poisoned. They convinced me… I’m a fool. Just a kid, they...”

_Then why did Bruce let them capture you?_

Next stop is near the old tomb. It’s very old, of dark crumbling stone, the statue of an angel misses a half of the right wing, a nose and one strand of hair. There are graffiti and empty bottles on the edges of the rectangular granite box.

Jason doesn’t notice some old pile of rags is alive and shifts when the boy talks to himself.

“He’s looking for me… He said, he’d never leave me!”

Arguing with himself is way more difficult than listening to Deathstroke’s lies, harder and heavier to feel the hesitations, those doubts that can ruin his world, his beliefs.

He is too young, now Jason is ready to tell that, to accept.

Too young to lose a family he had just found – or they found him, doesn’t matter! Too young to hear about his own death, too young to be disappointed, he doesn’t want all this to happen to him, he just wants to wake up and hear Alfie’s voice, to go to the dining room and…

“Cemetery’s not a place for kids to play ‘round.”

In the dark of the tomb’s corner a hunched figure lightens their face with a lighter when they start to smoke. The voice is male, old and cracky.

A homeless?

As a precaution, Jasons grips the thrower Slade once gave him. The only defence weapon.

_And this weapon gave Slade, not Bruce. Bruce didn’t want you to be safe._

“W-who are you?!” He can’t control his voice, the question ends with a high-pitch tone, but it seems not to make any fun for a stranger. The man stays in his place, smoking.

“Just a tramp living on a cemetery land, don’t ya see? Kids should not play here. Night’s not safe. Where are your parents, kid? You’ve lost? Know where’s the city?”

Jason’s fear evaporates with the breathing in the night, the shiver that starts torturing him is not caused by the emotions, it’s because of the cold, and he is barefoot. Suddenly, his state clashes him, strikes down with the precise thought: it’s a total mess.

His face aches, covered with a web of tens of tiny scratches, his feet ache, his heart – or something in the chest – plays a bad trick with him again.

And it doesn’t hide from the cemetery vagrant.

“You’re cold, kid. Where’s your– ”

“D-dead. My parents are dead.”

“Wow.” The man takes a deep breath of the smoke. “That’s pretty bad for someone of your age. How’d you get here?”

It turns out that the stray guy is not going to kidnap Jason, to take his clothes or do something bad with him. He just talks to the boy till the sunrise, when the first red, yet timid beams touch the sky, the man is ready to show him the way to the city.

But suddenly he speaks about Batman.

“...yeah, I saw him yesterday. And the lil’ guy in a funny costume with him. How is he called… Rob... Oh, Robert! Yeah, a lil’ kid just like you. Both flying ‘round the city, saving someone from another someone...”

Knife after knife, each of them reaches their goals – Jason’s heart. Half-frozen, with a soaring throat, he can’t stop sobbing.

New Robin.

Bruce…

He just couldn’t…

“...when life seems to be too shitty, I’m smoking. Y’know, when you feel the bitter taste physically, your body feels it, and you can distract yourself from the dirt ‘round. Since you’re an orphan, I can give you some. Take it. Anyway, Gotham’s more unhealthy for living than a cigarette.”

Jasons gets his first pack of cigarettes.

“Sorry, but have you seen the house? Two floored, no fence...”

“Oh, the masked guy lives there. He loves shooting, oh, yeah, he does. So loudy! It’s right there!”

Jason returns to the house to be met by Slade. The mercenary has just come back from the mission.

He sees the kid with a scratched face, shivering head to toe, with clothes dirty and cheeks wet with tears. In his right hand a cigarette, and he is smoking. Breathing out towards Wilson as he comes closer.

“J– ”

“This life sucks.”

Pressing his face to Slade’s chest, Jason shuts his eyes. Fuck the blood – whoever it belonged to – that stains his skin. Fuck the smoke burning his fingers. Fuck the cold he is already suffering from. Fuck the hand of Deathstroke to touch his hair – and fuck those white strands! Fuck everything.

“Welcome to the real world, kid.”

“Fuck you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to leave comments, suggestions, any questions and whatever you have in mind ^^  
> i love comments, and they inspire me a lot to write more and faster!
> 
> and yes, Vic will be also here as a friend of Slade, but this work is not related to 'The Aspect'. I just love this minor OC of mine :">


	3. Zeta Leonis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Zeta Leonis - in Arabic Adhafera (Aldhafera, Adhafara); meaning: ‘the curl’]
> 
> Well, this chapter is pretty huge. I didn't even expect that, but I didn't want to divide it too. I can't promise other chapters to be this big x)
> 
> Enjoy!

_“Sound check.”_

“Cool.” Rose shifts and fidgets and finally finds the most comfortable spot to sit and hold the tablet at the suitable angle for Jason to watch the impromptu prime time without tilting his head. “Picture is cool too. Go, we don’t have all night to sit here.”

“ _Rose_.”

“What?” She winks to Jason again, the tip of the tongue shows between her lips curved in a foxy smile. Cunning, fast, beautiful and full of energy. Jason finds her company more acceptable than Slade’s.

Engine off, the car has no other light sources than the tablet, and those shadows on Rose’s face create an image of the wayward witch, one of three sisters from Shakespear’s ‘Macbeth’. Maybe, it’s just the boy’s vivid imagination and the nervous day full of endless mocks and jokes that have driven him over the edge. He’s trembling, wanting to smoke stronger than ever, his chin resting on his knees pressed tightly to his chest.

Wilson is running along the rooftops now. He is already approaching the venue.

Meeting with Batman.

“ _Stop being my personal pain in the...neck_.”

Against his will, Jason snorts.

 _Now_ Deathstroke’s finding the polite way of speaking, huh? Why of all the…

“ _Wilson_.”

The camera pinned to Slade’s armor shows two figures. The first, tall, all in black, obviously Bruce. And the second, in red and black, only shoulder shields, the cape and the domino mask are green.

New Robin.

Slade and Rose didn’t lie to him.

Holy fucking shit.

DEATHSTROKE SAVED HIS FUCKING LIFE AND DIDN’T TELL LIES TO HIM.

“Buddy?” Brief shallow breathing cannot escape her eye when she turns to check Jason. His eyebrows lifted and furrowed a bit, lips tightly pressed in a thin line. “You okay?”

Jason doesn’t hear the question.

He is _there_. Listening. Dying again and again.

“ _...training a new sidekick, Wayne?_ ” The angle of view changes, Slade finds a new position. And Jason knows – for them. He is doing it for Rose and him to see better. The boy has dark short hair, the style is right the one Jason had _those_ days.

“ _Don’t know what you are talking about_.”

“ _Why, and the previous kid? Todd? Where’s he?_ ”

Heart skips one beat.

Pause.

Jason stops breathing, stops blinking and the world stops its existence at all.

“ _Is your remaining eye failing you too, Wilson? It’s Jason._ ”

And his world blows up with myriads of icy debris.

“ _What? I heard the boy’s dead. Maybe, while we’re having a nice talk here he’s somewhere climbing out of the grave. Dubious pleasure I might say._ ”

“Buddy? Please, say something. I _do_ worry. Buddy? Hey? Jason!”

“ _Your informants, whoever they are, told lies. Jason didn’t die and he is standing in front of you as you can see, Wilson_.”

Never before has Jason noticed how time is...much like water. It can pass slowly, a drop at a time. It can freeze or rush in a blink.

Now he can see those years, all that passed like thousands of camera frames per second shown at a time. Years under protection, years – a whole eternity for a kid from Gotham slums – behind the shield of confident promises.

In this slow-quick-time-bubble the sounds outside the car – birdsong, the whistle of the wind, the distant city noise – become louder; the tablet picture in front of him brighter; and the coldness of the car – colder. All the while his insides feel like nothing, pure void, a vacuum of cosmic darkness; nothing to feed, nothing to live, nothing to exist.

“Buddy?”

Jason turns his head, but too slowly to be normal. When he speaks – tries to speak – his voice is hoarse, quiet and halting. He needs to swallow but it's too difficult and painful that the spasms in his throat don't want to leave him. Blue eyes sparkle with disbelief. His teeth chatter with a slight sound of anger and fear, and with the bunch of emotions Jason is not even able to realise. 

His eyes widen, and his chest lifts and lowers convulsively as if it’s hard to breathe deeply, but he tries.

And then he screams.

“I’ll kill the fucking bastard with my bare hands!”

Jason’s on his way out of the car, but Rose’s there. And she is faster, stronger, and she knew what would happen, she knew the reaction. Both Slade and Rose foresaw Jason’s truth reception.

“Let me go!” Like some furious wild wounded animal in a trap, Jason feels it, with his every bone and joint as the world around him sinks into red and green, those colors burn his anger to empower him.

He doesn’t know that, but Rose is afraid when he almost succeeds to loosen her grip around his neck. She sees that – the strange green lightning in the reflection of the car window when she holds Jason from running out of the vehicle.

Rose knows about the Lazarus Pit.

But again, both of them – Slade and she – didn’t expect Jason to awaken those powers that early.

“Sit still and listen to me!” Rose has to tighten her grip around his neck taking his oxygen away. She doesn’t intend to really strangle him, but a little lack of the oxygen will calm Jason down. Forcibly, but efficiently and quickly.

Gasping, Jason catches her arms, digs his fingers into her rigid well-trained muscles. And loses that brief fight as he loses his air and his vision goes unfocused. Either because of the lack of oxygen, or because of tears, he doesn’t know for sure.

The backseat of the car goes blurry even taking into account the night time.

“Listen to me, and I’ll let you breathe. And even smoke if you want, but listen!” Her whisper is hot and sharp, it clashes into his mind, and he _has to_ listen to her. “Slade’s there for you, lil’ brat. For you to show, to reveal the truth. He saved your life when he didn't have to!”

It’s pain somewhere behind his heart.

Somewhere far away, and it reaches his eyes.

It forms into wet salty paths on his cheeks.

“Buddy… Bruce Wayne fucked up with you and he chose to continue doing this. But Slade fucking Wilson was there and now _is_ here, by your side.”

Too painful.

“I know what you’re feeling now, trust me. If you want, I will tell you and you'll see my story and my life’s no better than yours at all. Maybe even worse. But everything goes away, buddy. The pain, the people, emotions. It will be easier, I promise. You will be okay, bud.” Now her grip is more of a hug, tense and encouraging, she is not holding him to stop from running, she is just pressing him towards her warm body. Rose’s warm fingers smell with seasoning again, cilantro and basil, when she wipes his tears and strokes his hair. White strands make a strong contrast against everything. “Time waits for no one, but time heals everyone.”

“...y-you promise?”

So broken, so desperate and childish.

Rose has never felt it before, but when she is looking into those eyes full of painful shine, she gets it. The empathy her father feels towards those orphans, those kids abandoned and not wanted.

“Yeah, bud. I promise. Wanna have a drive to a bookshop? Have something hot and sweet to eat, to drink? Anything you want.”

He smokes that night a lot.

  
  


***

Wintergreen’s watching Slade. Slade doesn’t turn away and tries not to blink. And only Rose tries her best not to laugh and spoil the performance.

Lack of popcorn disappoints a bit.

The sight’s worth shooting a movie.

“ _Seriously_ , Slade?”

“Seriously, _Billy_.”

“You. Deathstroke the Terminator, a fucking immortal mercenary of the century, a guy who is able to keep in fear all the shadow world. YOU CAN’T GET THE TEEN OUT OF HIS ROOM? Correct me if I’m wrong.”

With a squinted eye and pursed lips Slade keeps silence. If his growling exhale doesn’t count.

“Damnit, Slade! You’re worse than a baby!” Billy drops his duffel bag onto the leather couch, next his coat and hat repeat that short flight route. “I need chess. Gimme fucking chess! And where’s the room?!”

As soon as Billy disappears right after a short walk upstairs, Rose sighs with laughter and returns to her favourite spot on the couch and goes on cleaning father’s gun. She finds Beretta M9 too beautiful and gracious and maybe a bit too cute for someone like Deathstroke. But there’s no accounting for taste, right?

“How many?” She asks after a while. She doesn’t lift her glance, and there’s no need to since she can feel Slade to look at her questioningly. “I mean, how many missions have you already signed to? Don’t forget: _you_ train the kid. Not me, not Vic. Well, maybe you could use some Vic’s assistance, he really needs to know how to deal with _real_ people.”

Sometimes they both are a little worried about Victor’s habits to shut himself within four walls and spend weeks, months alone, speaking to no one and doing hell knows what. As Vic says, he’s just sleeping and catching nostalgia flashbacks about good past days.

Doesn’t sound even remotely normal.

Those Russians are strange guys.

“I know, right? I do remember about the fucking kid, Rosie.”

“Well now he is ‘fucking kid’? And what’s then? You’ll throw him away when you finally realise you’re a bad mentor and it was a bad idea to take him at all? Oh, that’d be the moment of my triumph when I can say _‘I told you’!_ ”

She is wrong. And she’ll never tell him those words. Never ever.

It’s just too much for him, now Slade can see that. Too much, and the responsibility that loads on him turns out to be heavier than he expected. Jason is hard to cope with, to talk with, to do any-fucking-thing with in order to distract him from the past few days. He can’t even make him stop smoking! The kid’s just thirteen, and he smokes like a fucking chimney!

But Slade is immortal, he is a super soldier, and if he went through the war, he can go through the mentoring.

“As long as you’re with me, Rosie, everything will be okay.” And just before he wants to add something, they hear one gun shot upstairs, and then the muffled sound of falling pieces of plaster. “...what the hell?! BILLY!”

Wintergreen shows his happily and a bit idiotically smiling face pretty soon, less than in a minute. He runs down the stairs only to get the Mk2 grenade out of his bag.

“What the fuck. Billy?!”

“Oh...” He brushes away the white dust from his jacket and hair, forgetting he has his face dirty. His smile is full of genuine excitement. “I love this boy, Slade, wherever you found him! He won the chess party, and I owed him one shot. And now’s time for the second one, the bid is the grenade.”

“What. The. Fuck.” Slade growls, his hands in tight fists. “I won’t let you destroy my fucking house, Billy.”

“You’re really worse than a baby, Wilson. He is a fucking teen! A child! Children love toys! Give him an interesting one – and you won his trust and love!”

“But the grenade?!”

***

It’s too cold to sit in the room and have long talks about everything that happened, but Jason feels comfortable when at least something familiar surrounds him. He doesn’t want to leave the room, doesn’t want to accept the truth and he absolutely doesn’t want to become Slade’s apprentice.

He doesn’t want anything until William Randolph Wintergreen takes charge.

And then Jason’s eyes are finally lightened up with some sort of interest.

“He told me I was dead.” His hands show Billy their greatest talents and acceptable potential when Jason just throws the bullet, up and down and plays with it, and then with the dismantled pistol – just assembling and disassembling again and again. Motions confident and fast.

“You were, kid. Joker killed you. In a brutal and terrible way.”

The bullet stops between the boy's knuckles.

“I’m not a meta. How did I return?”

And Jason learns about the Lazarus Pit, and the magic it contains. About Ra's al Ghul and about the League of Assassins. About the rebirth the Pit gives. And about its strange, still not studied fully – even through centuries – power to leave pieces of the ancient magic in the human’s body.

“Then...” Jason frowns, the bullet dancing on the tips of his fingers again. “...it makes sense.”

“Makes sense?”

“I’ve noticed… It’s hard to describe. But I noticed the time can slow down randomly. Everything around is green and red. And at those moments I can move faster, or notice things on the distance I cannot usually see.”

“Grats, kid. You can call yourself meta now. Or at least half-meta.”

Jason’s excited, interested and intrigued. Now he wants to grab the power he was given, to possess and control it fully, to develop into something more. At the age of thirteen, already fourteen, he is full of confidence to become the toughest mercenary the world has ever seen.

***

It’s already his birthday, and thankfully nobody remembers to look through the dossier. He doesn’t lie to himself, of course Slade has files, every detail about him and his life and about Bruce. Comes no surprise that Wilson knows the true identity of Batman. Or Nightwing. Or the new Robin.

“Insomnia?” Slade gets down on the edge of the coach Jason’s sleeping on for the past couple of days. Tomorrow they’re going to finally change the window in his room. The bullet hole in the ceiling is already unseen, thanks to Rose. “Tomorrow’s training. No gonna make it easy for you just ‘cause you didn’t sleep well, kid.”

Jason presses his knees tightly to his chest, his chin sinking between laps. He doesn’t want to ask for anything, but he needs one last thing, a string to be cut. String with his past.

“You can call Dick now.” Quietly, like a thought spoken aloud not on purpose.

“I can. Why should I do that?”

The more Slade’s watching his reaction, the more he feels impatient tremble in his hands. He wants to do that for the kid, just as he asks. But thankfully, his rational part has always been dominating.

Jason is vulnerable. So disappointed in everything, and _died_ already, Jesus fuck.

No surprise the kid started smoking – pretty low cost for all the shit he survived.

“Okay, _what_ should I ask about?”

“About the meeting. If it was fake.”

Wow.

This thought never came to his mind, but Wilson never tried to analyse Jason’s words about the meeting with Grayson. It changed nothing, what’s the point of tapping unnecessary details? 

But for Jason it is important.

 _“What the fuck, Wilson?”_ The comm catches distant sounds of the cars. Nightwing is on the streets, as always at this hour.

“And hello to you, too, Grayson. Y’know, I’ve remembered about one poor boy. Jason? Jason Todd? Remember him? A little pain in the ass, funny and a way better Robin than you.”

_“Fuck you, Wilson, if that’s–”_

“...and that’s the kid who was hurrying up to meet his predecessor, the Golden Boy. Remind me, how did your meeting end?”

Silence.

And then Jason sobs hiding his face between his knees. Fucking God, they both think the exactly same thing.

Unable to speak to the kid right now, waiting for Grayson to answer, Slade reaches Jason’s head to hide his fingers in dark hair, to caress him. It feels strange, he never did anything like that. And it feels right when the kid shifts closer to him.

Being human, this is the right feeling.

 _“It was fake.”_ Grayson’s voice sounds hesitantly. _“Bruce told me he’d take care of him. I didn’t know he was going...”_

“Going _what_?”

_“It was his plan to leave Jason to Joker. Bruce wasn’t going to save him. He said Jason was out of control, too cruel, unsuitable for the family.”_

“And what’s the point of telling that Timothy is Jason?”

_“Todd is Bruce’s failure. He doesn’t want his family to be imperfect.”_

When Jason raises his head to take the comm, his eyes are not red or swollen. His glance is crystal clear, and even his hands almost do not shiver.

“Your family sucks, Dick.”

_“Jay–”_

Jason switches the comm off.

“I will kill Joker first.” The boy turns to Slade to meet his appreciative look. “Then I’ll come for Nightwing. Then – for any Robin, for all Robins _he_ will find. One by one, until _he_ is alone. And then, only then, _he_ will die.”

“Deal, kid.”

That night Slade lets him take his second bedroom, on the ground floor. The mercenary allows him to change the sheets, to create any comfort Jason wants, but Jason does nothing.

He curls under the heavy blanket, breathing in the smell of gunpowder, weak traces of cologne and some more scents that soothe him.

His first night without dreams.

  
  


***

Early in the morning Jason meets two things, and he likes only one of them.

First, the gym on the ground floor is huge. Really huge, with enormous amount of armor (Jason recognizes some old variants of Slade’s uniform), greatest collection of cold steel Jason’s ever met on the left side, along the wall and on the range of tables; the firearm taks the right part of the gym, and he is overwhelmed with the anticipation. Jason is sure: he is already allowed to try anything here.

It’s not the Batcave lit only by the artificial light – instead, the gym has its own wall windows, and the sunlight is free to warm the floor under bare feet. The Batcave also doesn’t have enough range to train shooting skills, and definitely there’s no targets.

Even the mats here are new to him, not too soft, but not that hard to feel the surface of the wooden floors. 

“Wow.”

“Impressed?”

The second new thing Jason meets is not actually a _thing_ , it’s a human. His name is Victor, he is Russian, and his humor is pretty strange. Terrifying, he might say, but it seems Slade trusts him because there’s no one in the gym except three of them.

Even Rose was not permitted to attend the very first training.

“Just… Wow. B doesn’t have that many… Killing stuff. He doesn’t like killing.”

“He doesn’t like killing _by his own hands_.” Vic smirks, taking the clock from the closest table. “Considering other ways of killing, Bat sometimes can surprise. Even us.”

Jason doesn’t like Victor at all.

“Returning to our agenda.” Slade catches his attention again, stepping backwards, not turning away from Jason. He is holding the cigarette pack in his right hand. The man's clothes are a bit similar to the boy: a simple T-shirt, sweatpants, also bare feet. Even his eye patch changes today, it’s not the one with a strap, but some kind of dark silicone that is attached to the eye and is holding there without additional fixation. “Let’s try something simple. Just a warming up. Wanna have a smoke? You must deserve it, kid. I don’t like the smoke scent, neither does Rosie, but if you want to have one, you should prove your right.”

With narrowed eyes, Jason steps on the mattes.

“What’s the trick?”

“No tricks. It's training, the first and not the last. I should know your limits and what you’re capable of, kid. A reward is just a way to motivate you.”

“And… I need to fight you and take the pack?”

Somewhere behind Victor bursts with laughter, and it sounds suddenly too cruel, too personally for Jason. He wants to punch him.

“Shut the fuck up, Vic.” And Slade’s again reading his thoughts, his impulses. Maybe, he should better govern his temper. “No, kid. No fights today or tomorrow, but we will soon since we’ve never truly fought. I don’t know if you’re not hopeless.”

“I’m not hopeless, ol’man!”

“Good, I like your mood today. Then prove it me. You have five minutes. During this time you must take the pack out of my pocket. I will not use weapons, I will not attack you, but I will dodge you. You’re free to use whatever you see.”

His mouth goes suddenly dry. The excitement makes his blood boil in veins. Weapons. Fucking treasury trove of weapons.

“And my…reward?”

“If you are able to get the pack, you’re allowed to smoke one cigarette today. If not – no smoking, kid.”

Fair enough. At least, it seems so.

Slade gives him ten minutes to choose the weapon, and Jason’s first thought was to take a simple gun and shoot Wilson’s knees, but it must be a very bad idea since Jason has never trained to shoot. No firearm, no guns for Robin or Batman.

He needs to be less predictive and outshine himself. To show he is fucking more than just deserving his right to anything that can ease his state. And of course, Jason will never ever think he is hopeless. And nobody, you hear, Vic, no-fucking-body can laugh at him.

“I’m ready, ol’man. I’ll get the pack in three minutes.”

Victor laughs again, but as Slade throws a threatening glance, he doesn’t try to add his comments.

“Alright, kid. Keep the clock, Vic.”

Jason took a rope and three daggers. He doesn’t know what to do with them, but only those items can inspire sort of confidence, returning his mind and body memory to past days when he used to be Robin. When he literally operated with ropes and throwers. Well, not exactly throwers in plural, it was only one. Given by Slade. And he is still with Jason – kept on the bedside table, _just in case_.

“The rope doesn’t seem to help you. Impractical.” Slade doesn’t move while Jason stands still, thinking. The timer in his head is ticking, and his counting has never failed him.

The walls are too far, he has no additional space for his ‘Robin’ maneuvers. Open hand-to-hand combat is a bad choice and Slade has said he is not going to fight him. It’s just a check. Then, he needs to be smarter than the old man and just take his smoke.

“Gonna play cowboys, kid?”

“Well, it’s really high noon somewhere in the world.”

Cowboys? Oh, Jason’s got an idea.

First two daggers dig deeply at the both edges of the mat and seem not to shift if Jason does what he is planning to do.

“You missed.”

“Oh, really?”

Slade doesn’t let him approach too close, and when he does, Jason catches a painful flick just in the center of his forehead. The mercenary tells him not to relax, but he doesn’t! It’s not his fault that he wasn’t trained the way usual soldiers are!

At the thought about soldiers Jason tries to ignore a flash of uncomfortable feeling in his chest.

It’s not important now.

What really bothers him – the unpredictable movements of Slade, it’s hard to get him trapped. Harder when his trap is too obvious, but Jason plays chess too well to lose this party. He needs to outplay a new opponent, it’s not even about his life, then it’s easier to win.

Jason is fourteen already when he understands how to use his new power. Not how to control it, but that’s better than nothing.

At one moment, when he has only one dagger left, the time stops for him. The tension in his eyes increases, tears come down his face, but he _sees_ . Air of the gym becomes colder as the world around puts on red and green colors. He can _see_ the path Slade has chosen to move, he can see the way to throw a dagger and cut his pocket, where the pack is kept. Then the pack will fall to _this_ spot, Slade’s leg is not that fast to kick him away from the pack.

The prediction, pure knowledge of each action. Sweet Jesus, Billy was right!

Jason needs just three and a half minutes to get the pack and leave Slade with a cut under the lower line of his pocket. His eyes are sore and ache as hell, his sight goes blurry, but he got his reward.

“Slade, what the–”

“Shut up, Vic.” The older man smiles. He doesn’t sneer or smirk, it’s a _human_ smile. “Well done, kid.”

***

Jason is just fourteen when he starts sleepwalking.

They discover this unpleasant effect of dying and resurrecting on one cold November night, when Rose finds Jason on the top of the house roof. He is standing at the edge of the side that ends with a long deep pit, full of young trees and pointy branches. Jason can die if he jumps, but Rose’s reflexes are enhanced. She’s Deathstroke’s daughter, after all, and that fact saves Jason’s life.

“Got you, buddy.” She exhales briefly, holding Jason tighter. “Come on, wake up, bud. If you’re trying to sleep, you’re doing it the wrong way.”

When Jason opens his eyes, he doesn’t know why he is on the fucking roof and why it’s cold around, and why the hell Rose is shaking him. No, it’s not Rose, it’s a heavy tremor of his body, and she is stroking him. She tells lots of stupid things, but he can’t say anything in response.

Something holds him back, something in his throat doesn’t let any word be spoken.

He is crying, shivering, and he doesn’t know why, or how to stop it. At the age of fourteen Jason suddenly discovers there are moments when he has no control over his own body.

***

Jason is still fourteen when he is invited to the mission.

“Not in a million fucking years. No. NO. FUCK NO.”

“C’mon, sweetie! You’ll look gorgeous in these pants!”

Slade puts his cup of coffee on the table too loudly, dragging everyone's attention. Even Victor stops smiling as an idiot.

“You know who’s Victor Zsasz, right?”

“Psychopathic serial killer.” Jason nods. Of course, he knows. And then he looks straight at Vic. “Suppose, no _normal_ person can be called Victor.”

“You, little _zasranets–”_

“Fuck you! I know Russian language, asshole!”

Something changes in Vic’s eyes, but he has no chance to speak, because Slade takes a word and talks pretty long and in a persuasive manner. Victor – the maniac, not the Russian – annoyed none other than Roman Sionis and killed his favorite secretary. And as Jason learns, Sionis doesn’t like when somebody touches what belongs to him. Black Mask hired Slade to deliver Zsasz to him. The difficulty is that the psycho has switched to raping and killing pretty little boys instead of pretty young women, and now he is hiding.

But, _of course_ , Deathstroke has his hands in everything.

“What’d you say?” Rose waves with the shorts in front of Jason, lollipop in her other hand. “If you agree to be a bait, I’ll take you to the bookshop right after we take that jerk.”

Few hours later Jason is standing at the corner of the most abandoned Gotham streets, licking the candy and staring at the car, frowning. He had to put on those shorts – and they are _short_.

 _“Fix your face, bud!”_ Rose’s voice tells him in the earpod. _“If you stand like this, even Zsasz won’t like your pretty ass.”_

When Jason is ready to dump just everything and get out of there, a tall bald man squats in front of him.

“Look what we–”

Victor Zsasz has no opportunity to finish the sentence because at the next moment Jason stabs him in his left eye with the lollipop stick.

_“That’s my boy!”_

***

Jason is fourteen when he becomes brave enough to let himself jerk off in the shower.

It’s not the thing he doesn’t understand. He knows his body pretty well, and he’s read anatomy books, and the Internet is free to access. He is shy just a bit, while he needs to acclimate to the new house, to new people around.

He is not afraid if anyone can hear him, because nobody can. He has checked the soundproof walls of the bedroom and of the bathroom. No sound will be heard in the hall or in the dining room if he moans, but he doesn’t.

Biting his lips, with his eyes shut, Jason presses his forehead to the shower cabin wall and tries to remember any _pleasant_ images.

While his grip is stroking his cock, he can remember only half-naked Rose when she came out the gym; he remembers Slade’s strong fingers massaging Jason’s back when he pulled a muscle…

Hard, hot flesh in his hand twitches at the sweet memory of the physical contact.

_The strong hands slip over his body, warming up, fingers press slightly, then harder and harder until his overstressed muscles relax and…_

The edge comes quickly and and suddenly, and it’s so strong that Jason falls on his knees.

“Shit.”

He understands.

“Shit.”

He knows it’s wrong as hell.

But every next time he tries to think about anything else, when he tries to watch _videos_ , he can think only about one fucking man in this house.

“Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, your comments are literally a gasoline for the flame of writing, so don't be shy to tell if you like the work or suggest what you'd like to see ^^  
> rly, i will write faster and more with comments since i feel inspired :">
> 
> also, i need your answer: if you had an opportunity to read the chapters during the writing process, would you take it? like, reading the fic with the author and seeing the text earlier than other readers? and would you like to have an opportunity to influence the fic, to order the plot twists, etc?
> 
> as for the russian word 'zasranets' used in the text: it means 'asshole'. welcome to lessons of russian obscene language :"D


	4. Alpha Piscium. Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Alpha Piscium – in Arabic Al-'Uqdah; meaning: ‘the knot’]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, i didn't plan to divide this chapter. but you know what? if i didnt make 2 parts, you'd see a 25-27 pages chapter. i don't think it's convenient to read this huge volume of thte text.  
> the next part is almost ready and will be published soon.
> 
> i had a pretty tough week, and all i could do this weekend - just have a rest cuase i didn't have power and energy literally for anything.  
> and still i hope you enjoy the new chapter ^^

“ _‘When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars…’_ ”

Rose winces in the darkness and makes a new puff, the joint in her fingers responses with a sudden loud crackle. A second – and Jason’s gasping in a cloud of the weed smoke.

“Screw you, Rose!”

“Screw your nerd citing, bud.”

“It’s Shakespeare!”

“As I said: nerd.”

The night sky above them is a cloudless blanket, stars – head crumbs some sloppy hand has thrown and forgot to wipe off. And those sparkling dots, blinking and shining confidently, tiny, barely seen and those attracting the eyes first – all of them are mixed in chaos of drawings that a vivid imagination can join into constellations.

It’s like an old child’s play they printed on the back of the cereal boxes.

Trace the dots in the correct order and get the image.

“Remember I’ve promised you a story, buddy? Wanna hear it now?”

Jason is fifteen. And he hasn’t heard the story Rose once mentioned yet. Frankly speaking, he has already forgotten that day, it didn’t just disappear from his mind, but it never bothered him. Eternal training and mental health problems, sleepwalking and Rose’s and Slade's annoying insisting on taking sedatives take all his thoughts. And when he has spare time, Jason’s fully in the reading. Books pile in his room: the floor, the coffee table, the windowsill, and even the bed are covered with those. Some of them have been read already and re-read, some of them are new and not even touched.

Thankfully, nobody asks him why he needs those books, why so many and why paper variants if there are plenty of ways of reading via gadgets, it’s XXI century after all!

“Why now, Rose?” Jason takes a sip from his beer bottle and lies again on his back to face the starry sky.

It’s June.

Hot days and friendly warm nights full of forest sounds and scents of the lush grass, it’s the season of sweet anticipation of something great to come though there aren't many holidays to celebrate. The end of June is when they can lie on their backs and watch the stars shine, waving from the distant past that hasn’t still reached the Earth.

The rooftop surface is warming his skin even through the T-shirt fabric, and it’s also a part of the summer taste. A little thing to enjoy and save in the memory, a rare simple thing to happen without consequences.

“Now – because I’m high and because… Well...” Rose makes one more puff. “I’m just worried about dad. It’s his marriage anniversary soon, and he usually...”

“Wait, you said ‘dad’?”

It’s just his dizzy mind, just his dizzy mind, Rose cannot be…

“Bud, ya serious? What about a familial match?” Her laughter is gloomy. It sounds bitter as if the story she is about to tell hurts her even now. “I’m Rose Wilson, buddy. Not adopted, if it’s still not clear for you.”

He needs those huge gulps of beer to swallow and digest the truth. He was so blind, so stupid! It’s so fucking obvious, just in front of him! Look at her face, her features, look at her fair blue eyes…!

“You know, we used to be a normal family.” Jason has to literally bite his tongue, painfully, just to cut those unnecessary words and questions. He is too drunk. And actually, Slade was very clear about drinking alcohol and smoking weed, and other ways to entertain. Nothing is allowed until Jason is twenty-one. But, well, Rose is not Slade even if she’s Wilson. “My mother, this fucking slut, my dad – best dad in the world, and me, a lil’ girl inherited his meta DNA. You know about the super serum, right?”

Distinctive rustling tells Rose about Jason’s nod.

“Everything was just fine. He gave up all his missions after I was born. Those agents, I still don’t know who they were, they covered us. It was something like a witness protection program but for experimental super-soldiers’ families. My mom used to work there, in the lab. Damn that bitch!”

Angry, with a hoarse voice and embraced by the weed smoke, Rose takes a seat. Her knee is too close to Jason’s face, and he tries to shift a bit. In this mood, with a dizzy mind, she can behave unpredictably.

“She ruined our family! You, bud, look at you!” If he hasn’t shifted, the joint could burn his nose. But instead, Jason feels the warmth as Rose points at him, shouting. “You were ready to fight us, me and him, just to come back to the Bat! To the people you considered as your family! And it’s an instinct of every-fucking-normal-body…! Ah, shit...”

Rose throws the blunt over the roof edge. Though it’s night, the crescent moon gives enough light for eyes to adjust and see Rose’s face. Maybe, it’s because of beer, but Jason supposes her cheeks must be blushed with emotions. He thinks that should be right, correct.

And something, more familiar as more sleepwalking cases he has experienced, again grips his throat, letting no word to escape his mouth and mind.

It’s a story to tell uninterrupted.

“I thought she loved him. Because he… Jesus fuck! The guy knew the war only! He knew how to kill and how to fight and he was ready to fucking die! And then he meets a woman and loves her, loves her this much that he is ready to fucking give up! To be her lab rat and propose and have a child!”

Rose’s mother, as she says, cheated on him. And it appeared to be a cruel backstab on Slade.

“You know how it happened? Oh, Jesus, she was a fucking scientist but she was such a stupid bitch! Ugh… My brother – I do _not_ consider him as my brother, pal – was born. And he... _father_ just had his post-war issues, got it? He made a DNA test and was ready to train one more meta kid. And you know what? Joe didn’t inherit meta DNA. He didn’t – well, and he doesn’t now too – have common DNA with him and me. The bitch fucked with...! Fuck!”

She is so loud, and her anger is contagious. It’s a virus and it spreads pretty fast. Via his respiratory system, via his skin and the air, and the words they share on this roof. Several seconds, it takes this little to overwhelm Jason.

But the nature of the overwhelming is his secret.

And Rose better be kept in the dark.

She will kill him. If she knows, Rose will kill him.

“After their divorce he… Do you know he is literally immortal? You can disassemble his body, literally in atoms, and he will come back in a few hours. Do you know how he discovered this?” Rose leans closer and closer until she closes the dark starry blanket above them. Her hair in a ponytail flows down, several strands tickle his chin. Her eyes, so close, they glisten so brightly. Like all those stars she blocks transmit their light through her. “There’s a testing room, under the house. In the basement, he keeps a special testing room there. Once it has survived the atomic bomb explosion, and so did he. Can you imagine what a person must feel if he blows himself up with an a-bomb?”

Further, she goes further and presses her cheek to his chest. Rose curls up at his side, sharing her own warmth. The stars are seen again, but nothing can outshine an image of Slade trying new ways of suicide, again and again. 

_“You can’t hurt me even if you throw an a-bomb on my head.”_ – that what he said to Jason, in some distant past when he was a little stupid bird.

Rose sounds broken and upset, and Jason feels his hand touch her firm shoulder, and she doesn't mind. The motion is against his will, he is frightened with the ‘story’ and frightened with all his feelings torturing him for the last year.

Scared and ashamed, and more painful to remember his previous family. Families. Where he was unwanted and abandoned.

“I was by his side, Jay.” When she calls him by his short name, his chest goes in spasms. “All this time. I saw him in his best and his worst days. He was sure he was not a human, y’know. It’s his biggest fear. To find evidence he is _something_ but a human. I saved him, believe me, or not. I was saving him, and I don’t want to see him hurt anymore. He needs a family, and… Jay, you’ve become a part of this family, okay? I want you to know that. That’s why I told you all...this shit.”

A stark grip on his throat eases a bit, enough to say only a few words.

“Thank you, Rose.”

“You’re welcome, nerd. Welcome to the family, get it?”

He can’t respond to this friendly choke, he can’t take away his hand from Rose’s shoulder, but he can be grateful for the truth she has shared with him. Grateful for the understanding… Jesus, she saw him, his fears, his hesitations. She knows what he needs and seeks for, and… How can it happen that a killer could get through emotional shit and let it bury him? How…

Slade is so strong, why? Why was he defeated by a woman? By emotions?

Was it _that_ feeling? Is everyone _that_ weak facing love and affection?

“Hey, nerd? Wanna stay here and have – how’s it called? Summer night nap?”

“It’s ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’, Rose!”

“Nerd!”

***

Sleepwalking.

Again.

And this time it ends with a too deep cut, it has almost damaged his veins. There’s blood: on the floor tracing his way from the bathroom to the ground floor living room, on the couch, on his sleep clothes, on Victor who is stitching his wound now, on Rose who has made a warm tea for him.

He has broken the mirror in the common bathroom and. Vic was the only one to hear the noise, and he saved Jason from hurting himself further.

“We’ll call Dr. Villain tomorrow.”

Jason frowns but doesn’t even lift his head to look at frowning Rose.

“You can’t keep avoiding medicine, Jay. You’re doing worse to yourself, and make us worry.”

She is right.

And her words make his cuts hurt badly. Vic tries his best to hold his hand in a position when nothing can disturb it more than the surgical needle. Suddenly, the Russian turns out to be good at first aid, and his stitches are neat and small. If there’s no disgusting sound of the skin pierced by the needlepoint heard only because Jason’s feelings are sharpened, he would feel safe. In good hands. And probably surrounded by some sort of concern.

“How are you going to sleep now, bud? You have lots of work to do tomorrow, you need to sleep. Not walk and sleep, just sleep.” 

Rose’s insistence makes him shiver and pull his knees towards his chest in an instinctive gesture of self-protection. He doesn’t have answers, he doesn’t have any ideas. Fuck, he doesn’t have any clear thought at all.

“Jay–”

“We can give him some whiskey. Or brandy. Depending on what we have now.” Victor puts a wide band-aid to cover the stitched wound and changes his position, a needle disappears from his hand. Now he has forceps to take little glass pieces from Jason’s minor cuts. “But Slade’s did not allow to give him any alcohol before twenty-one...”

As if Victor has said a secret code phrase, both of them – Rose and Vic – turn their heads to the wall clock. It shows 12:05 a.m.

“It’s twenty-four-zero-five. So I guess it counts as ‘ _after twenty-one_ ’.” Rose shrugs and runs upstairs, to produce loud impatient noises with the cupboard.

What?

Are they really going to just get him drunk enough to sleep like a lamb?

“Thank you and leave us, please. I need something to tell our little loony.”

It’s strange.

Everything is strange.

His cuts and Vic’s – thanks _but_ – too quick help. The way Rose is ready to leave the living room without a word, but it’s her house, Victor’s just a guest here! Or it’s just the usual feeling in his mind and the presence of sickness, waving like a tide? Maybe, being in this state means he is not able to think properly and he doesn’t catch major details of what’s going on around, and it's supposed to be a normal reaction?

But Jason definitely doesn’t like the idea to take pills.

He doesn’t like medicine stuff, at all.

“Look, it’s not too much for you. Just to ease your mind, all right? We’re not going to get you drunk.” Victor adds brandy to Jason’s cup of tea with honey and camomile. “In my homeland mothers usually give a few drops of hard liquor to children if they’re ill...”

“That’s why you became such a big asshole, _tovarisch_.”

The first sip of the tea is a bit too bitter, but the next one is comforting him, warming, and lulling.

Victor smirks, not insulted at all.

“I wanted to speak to you about the pills. I know you don’t want to take them. But think about the mercenary work you’re willing to do. If you’re that bad with your own head if you’re not able to control your body, are you sure you suit this job? I mean…just be honest with yourself, boy. You can trick other people – and I don’t want to remind you you’re not able to hide the sleepwalking – but you cannot deceive yourself.”

With a loud pounding, the cup meets his teeth. Jason freezes on his spot, looking at Victor with widened eyes.

Russian… Are all of them that strange? They always look and speak like they hate you and the whole world around you. And you expect nothing but a sudden stab into your back, but then Victor helps him, speaks in a soft tone, speaks like with equal. Not like with a kid even calling him a boy.

Why?

Why is Vic so unclear? Why is it so hard to understand him? And what is Jason supposed to do with this avalanche of emotions and broken stereotypes, and tons of images about Vic he created?

“And – uh...” Victor scratches the back of his neck and looks away. Is he...confused? “You’ve mentioned you know the Russian language. How about watching an old Russian movie with me?”

What the hell…?

***

Slade throws – no, he slams – Jason’s face into the gym floor. The matt surface softens the hit but his jaw echoes with a slight cracking sound. The arm twisted and kept by the only Slade’s hand aches as hell in several spots: the shoulder, the elbow, and the wrist.

“F-fuck!”

Spitting with blood is not his plan for today’s training, but here he is now.

Copper taste in his mouth tells him he has successfully bitten his cheek from the inside. Shit.

“What’s wrong with you today?” Slade counts to ten in his head and releases his grip to take a couple of steps back and watch Jason’s attempts to stand straight. “Need more time to get used to the pills?”

“N-no.”

What’s wrong with Jason today? What the fuck is wrong with Slade, that’s the better question! Yesterday he told they were going to have light training, with repeating Muay Thai kicking techniques, more friendly sparring. 

Not the hard mode when Jason needs to dodge both Wilsons – Rose and Slade – and keep the distance, and watch the breath, and – fuck! – keep in a sleepy mind too many things at once, and try not to _‘switch on’_ his Lazarus vision. Easy to say!

Those sedatives Arthur Villain has given to him influenced his connection with the _vision_. Changed by the medicine, Jason’s mind becomes slower to react, his body doesn’t fully fail him, but all the training he has had since the start of the treatment was exhausting, more than usual.

“Hey, buddy?” With a smirk, Rose fixes her red boxing hand wraps. “Tired already?”

The worst thing about today’s morning, except shameful punches and eternal jokes, is Slade. His whole existence, his appearance, his way of fighting today. The one-eyed doesn’t have wraps around his hands – it’s just for Rose to soften her blows since she doesn’t possess all the years of mentoring experience as her father does, and sometimes she cannot control her strength perfectly. Slade’s way of fighting is not serious, obviously, he’s faster and stronger, and instead of using his fists, he slaps Jason at any uncovered spot just with his palms. The strength is enough to throw Jason off-balance, but not enough to leave bruises.

And the worst of the worst things – after the touches of Slade’s hands – is his recent habit of taking the T-shirt off during the training.

It bothers Jason.

Drags all his attention.

Confuses him and frustrates, and makes him flush from the tip of his chin to his ears. Slade’s way too handsome and well-built. Jason hasn’t had any hesitations about this fact, but the more he is watching the naked torso of Slade glisten with sweat, the more unwelcome thoughts bury him.

And – oh, _may the ground open swallow him up_ – the grey chest hair...

“Bud, are you listening?”

His _vision_ returns at the most appropriate second giving him enough time to come to his mind back, to remember the situation he is in: Rose’s fist is already headed towards his face, and Slade decides to make a slide from the other side.

Shit, shit, shit.

In this pose, frozen as the time stopped, Slade looks marvelous: a giant panther, martial, ready to kill. And so fucking gracious when killing.

It’s time to end the training or Jason’s tight sweatpants are going to explode in one particular spot.

First – he grabs Rose’s wraps and in one motion her hands are tied behind.

Then – he is already to provide a stunning high kick to Slade and send him in a several meters flight, but suddenly, in the red-and-green world, Jason notes a detail he has never seen before. Slade’s only eye traces his every movement, every preparation for the next blow.

Slade sees him through the stopped time!

“Not just yet, kid.”

His slide is gracious, really, and as the aftermath of it, Jason slams the gym floor again, now with the back of his head.

Fuck those super soldier’s enhanced reflexes!

***

Shower cabin has always been a place to forget there’s another, _real_ world. It’s so easy to step into the bathroom, shut the door, and undo the pants. And then turn the warm water on – more close to hot, almost boiling, just close to the boiling blood temperature.

It’s easy to pretend he is not Jason Todd, trained by the old mercenary.

He is just one guy who – _fuck_ – likes another guy.

This affection is so bad that he must find a way to escape the skin he lives in, the house, those people, and those thoughts. He must close his eyes, otherwise, Jason won’t melt in the brief tactile memories.

Under the shut eyes there can be anything, right?

There’s nothing bad he’s excited when Slade touches his back when twists his hand – fucking Jesus, this one is the longest touch accepted this week.

A tender, unsure caress of his own hand turns into a firm grip around his cock. His arousal is stinging, the waves of the upcoming climax are bitter, salty with rare tears, and with the realization of why he is jerking off now.

“Ngh...”

His movements are always too fast as if he’s doing something bad like he is stealing from the dearest. His hard erection seems for him a great mistake, a sin he has tasted, and got addicted to.

_During the last training, Slade was holding his ankle. It was for showing some counter-blow ways, but his hot dry palm was in contact with Jason’s skin._

It was…

It almost aches, when he is so close, and still afraid of those emotional lightning bolts; every memory, every tiny piece and milliseconds of the gods’ – choose any – gift, all of that twisted his mind and agonized new orgasm.

“Kid?” A loud knocking at the door of his room. “Gonna drive the city. Need something? Rose’s making a shopping list… Kid?”

Oh, God.

He almost sees as Slade could stand in front of him on his knees, with the usual one-eyed sly look. As he could open his mouth, lips wet of saliva, as the long hot tongue could reach the red head, lick the prec–

Sweet fucking Christ.

One more memory.

And his first fantasy about Slade’s coming in and seeing him doing...this.

***

He is still a bird, confident in the idea he can fly away whenever he wants, whenever it’s necessary. He’s not a Robin, but something more dangerous, a bird with sharp – yet still small – claws and pointy predator beak.

Not sure for whom he is dangerous, well, but he is not helpless.

Every step, every breath of his is unheard. And there’s nobody except himself to know Jason’s breaking the rule of the house. No one is allowed to enter Slade’s bedroom. Even after that night, the only one when he slept there, he had no privileges.

Slade and Rose have driven to the city to buy some supplies and books and whatever the house needs. Victor left, a week ago, he had his own missions. Jason is trusted enough to leave him alone, but not stable enough to take him to the city. What happens if he sees Batman? Or Robin? Or any other shade looks familiar and frightens him? Villain said he needed to calm down his nerves and forget the previous life.

One year is not enough.

One and a half is not enough too.

“God...”

In Slade’s bedroom, there is always a lot of light: huge windows, every room in the house has huge windows; lots of lamps – on the ceiling, on the almost empty desk, on the walls, and on the bedside tables. Slade doesn't feel comfortable in the darkness? Is it connected with the fact he has only one eye?

And the desk…

Except for the lamps, there are just two things. Need to say, Slade’s bedroom on the ground floor is not piled with things at all. There’s no armor and weapon anywhere seen. A bathroom door is barely seen: a white door and white walls around it.

...it’s a photo and a white and black fabric, a scarf Slade used to wear. Kufiya, if Jason remembers the correct word. 

The fabric smells awfully strong. With a mix of cologne, sweat, dust, gunpowder, and steel polish. _The scent of Slade._ Something twitches downside, under his belly. It’s too personal, too intimate, too…

Is that Rose?!

A little girl in the photo. She has grey hair, her eyes are shut as he holds the large hand of a black-haired man, he is smiling and this smile sends small wrinkles to the corner of his eye.

Slade and Rose.

Her childhood.

How many was she when this picture was made? She doesn’t look older than seven or eight. She has two cute ponytails, one of them is a bit lower than the other. Her smile is wide, showing a lack of a front tooth.

A sudden crack and a knock on the window glass frightens him and Jason flies away from the room as any smart bird could do.

Not at once, but he realizes he took a black-and-white scarf, a trophy with him.

For some reason, it aches to breathe though he has already taken his pills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> details and information about upcoming chapters are posted on my twitter
> 
> also i'm planning to transform Canis Borealis into an original work, and i need you to answer: would you like to read it as original with illustrations?  
> and yes, im making illustrations for my original works.


	5. Alpha Piscium. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know it's been a while since the last update.  
> im doing my best to find some free time and write just anything T.T but im working officially towards writing, and the work takes all my time and makes me super tired.  
> coding is not that easy, y'know  
> if you like the new chapter, just write a line or two to show it, i'd appreciate it very much guys 
> 
> [Alpha Piscium – in Arabic Al-'Uqdah; meaning: ‘the knot’]

“I wonder, young man, why are you still fond of reading?” Billy tries to watch attentively, but at the threshold of sixteen, Jason becomes incredibly fast to catch the minor details of his movements. “First I thought it’s because of the stress you got. But then? Now? Sorry for the old man’s interest.”

Despite the echoing and reverberating sounds of the gun firing, Wintergreen can hear Jason’s response precisely. Whilst he is showing his workout results, the teen can also find some time to chat and even reload. Most of the targets – moving and static ones – are shot already, and there’s a few cardboard people having a hole _, not_ in their heads.

Two hands shooting – excellent.

Assault rifles – excellent.

Burst fire – excellent.

Aiming while standing – huh! Too easy now for Jason.

Aiming while moving – a bit harder, but at almost sixteen, he is _too_ good.

“I’m reading because I can find answers there. In the books.”

Sniper rifle – good, but Slade wants to use the boy’s _vision_. He says it may come in handy for some contracts. The bigger distance, the better results, the more silent mission. The old mercenaries never preferred acting like a bunch of C4, letting everyone in the area know about attempted homicide. The fewer people hear and watch, the tighter you will sleep.

“And what kind of answers do you need, young man?” Billy bursts with laughter when the empty tin-can he has thrown bounces from Jason’s head with a funny loud sound. Just at the moment of reloading. “Don’t look at me like that! You should remember about controlling the situation. Never, you hear me, never stop being paranoid and never stop monitoring the area.”

“Oh, then it’s the famous mercenary paranoia that made Slade the best assassin in the world? Not the serum and not enhance– Ah, fuck… Not enhanced senses?”

Despite the grumbling, Jason has a good mood today. He usually does when the training is held by Billy. All those conversations they have never reach Slade’s ears, and it hard to tell the same about any other talks Jason has with Vic (though the Russian sometimes can keep secrets), and with Rose – especially Rose. For some reason, she prefers to expose every topic Jason reveals his curiosity in. She herself calls it ‘informing’, but Jasons thinks more about denouncing. Even personal things could become public, though the house doesn’t accept more residents since Jason started living here.

But… Not all of them could be called family.

And if Slade and Rose are called somehow dearest-nearest people, it’s more because there’s simply no one to be called this way.

“I– ” Jason finally places the tough trigger of Chinese T91. “Well, I need to know what it is: to be dead, to return from the dead. You know, there’s not much actually in the literature. But it seems...”

Billy understands.

He sees now not just a well-trained and talented future mercenary, but a lonely boy with family lost – several times! – who doesn’t have anyone close enough to be trusted; nobody by his side to give advice, to help him on his way of growing up.

Blasted Slade with his weaknesses… Next time, Billy makes a brief note in his pocket notebook, he will bring some interesting books for Jason. And then they will discuss some of them.

***

“Is it a new comedy movie?” Jason takes his favorite spot on the couch in front of the TV where a white-and-black movie is already paused. “I really did like the ones with those three dumbasses. How was the last one called? ‘The coward, the–’”

“ _‘Kidnapping, Caucasian Style’_. And ‘The Coward, The Idiot and The Veteran’ are just pen-names of the three unlucky bandits.”

“Sounds just like _‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’._ I just understood that.” He helps Victor to take a bowl with pop-corn and his beer cans. Slade and Rose have gone, a new mission and they are going to be absent for three days. That’s why Vic doesn’t mind when Jason takes his beer. “So, what’s the new movie about?”

Their movie evenings suddenly appear to be cozy and relaxing. When Vic just offered him to watch some old Russian – he called those Soviet ones – movies, Jason wasn’t sure it was a serious intention. But after they watched the very first movie, with funny actors and precise language even for Jason who didn’t have translating or interpreting practice for pretty long, Vic showed himself as a soft and emotional person.

Jason knows now that Victor misses his motherland a lot, and he has left his family in Russia when he was recruited to the super-soldier serum testing. His fiancee, his parents, and grandparents – maybe, grandmother and grandfather are not even alive now – are left there, with no news about Vic. He had to follow the privacy policy. And then something went wrong, he had to take part in the Far East conflict, and after that, he was announced as a war criminal in Russia. And all the roads to his family, any contacts became forbidden.

When re-watching those old movies, Victor told him, he recalls his childhood and the peaceful time he had with his family. His native language is not widely spoken, especially in the areas he had to fight. That’s why he was glad to know Jason knew Russian – it was a possibility to share his sacred memories and emotions, and stop feeling the loneliness.

Those soldiers, aren’t they strange?

They’re killing people with no mercy, but the family means everything, it can break them. Memories make them vulnerable, but no other weapon can!

Not a secret, but every time Jason is facing this thought it’s like the first time: this world is strange and crazy, to put it mildly.

“It’s called ‘The Dawns Here Are Quiet’, and it’s about World War II.” Vic shifts and takes a cushion to put it on his lap and then puts the bowl on it. “But, you know, the Second War is never called this way in Soviet countries. It’s called The Great National War… Or, I guess, it may sound this way in English. For the Soviet people, it was a war when the whole motherland rose against the enemy. You may know the name of the Eastern Front.”

Every movie evening brings Jason more information about the Russian people, and their customs, and their beliefs. Now he knows there's a sort of cult created after the war ended. People celebrate the victory in the war every year in May, and people used to respect veterans.

“My grandfather was a veteran.” Victor frowns. “And the movie… It's a drama. About five girls who are anti-aircraft gunners. They will face germans and… You will see it. No spoilers.”

Jason likes this movie too. It has some implicit hooks that pin him to the couch and make him silent till the film is over. Maybe, it’s because of the old, black-and-white colors – but the start of the film is colored to show the difference between ‘now’ and ‘then’. Maybe, it’s the beautiful actors’ skill: the girls really looked too young to die, and yet all of them died. And their Sergeant was the only to survive and capture Germans – but he succeeded thanks to girls.

The idea of doom, the atmosphere of death inevitability doesn’t ease the grip on Jason’s mind even when he is already in bed.

Those little girls in the movie just ended the school and went to the frontline, to face the enemy, ready to die. Victor said, there was a book written first, and only then they made a movie.

Then… Jason needs that book. He needs answers.

***

Jason is sixteen and a half when is allowed to use the most precious treasure of all the firearm arsenal Slade has.

The Black Arrow.

Serbian sniper rifle, ‘Zastava’, or The M93 Black Arrow, 12.7×108 millimeters. Bolt action, air-cooled, magazine-fed, with a fixed stock. Light and smooth, black, with no scratch on the body – it _feels_ that Slade does adore his favorite gun.

“The effective range of this Serbian babe is about 3 kilometers.” Slade sets something on his binoculars. “I need to know how long you can keep your eyes enhanced and if you can shoot the target at a greater range and empower the shot. Relax and remember the training, kid. It's good weather for shooting, the wind is helping, the sun’s not blinding. Shoot as many times as you can hold your _vision_.”

They are standing in the forest, the house is somewhere behind their backs. It’s early autumn, when the trees are still green, only a few spots of yellow are seen in rare places. The wind is mild and soft, it’s warm. And the sun is shining bright enough to call this day sunny, but the celestial body prefers to play hide-and-seek amidst the clouds, and its beams don’t bring any troubles with aiming.

In his hands – smooth corps of the rifle, it’s cool and comfortable to touch.

Even more comfortable when the realization strikes him, sending tiny snakes of shiver along Jason’s spine. This is the exact rifle Slade has always been taking with him. That exact ‘Zastava’ Slade touched too, and pressed his cheek to, and caressed, and held in a tight grip. If the metal of the stock could remember the warmth of human skin, Jason’s sure he would feel ghosts of all previous physical contacts.

“Come on, Jason.”

Slade is too close, and they are together.

There’s not much space between them, Jason can almost catch the heat of the older man’s forearm, not closed by the T-shirt fabric.

A new experience, new emotion floods Jason’s mind. Something, consisting of calm and peace, of silence and the sweetness of the fresh wind. Is it… Tranquility?

“Start.”

This time his _vision_ doesn’t fail him. He sees, sees every detail at a huge range, the biggest he has ever dealt with. The world stops again like it’s just a swimmer ready for a jump: holding the breath and not moving, and this tiny period, the pause of the whole universe is only for Jason. To see, to shoot, to watch the microscopic pieces of pine needles stop dancing in the rare sunbeams; to watch Slade, frost, with his usual grin.

He is beautiful, especially when nothing stops Jason when nothing bothers him and he can examine Wilson’s body again and again, with his soaring eyes: up and down, remembering every scar and every faint print of the past missions on his skin. Watch his black hair glisten with several silver strands – the sun makes his grey hair look incredible.

Lazarus Pit managed to give Jason something nothing in the world could.

Relax and take _his_ time.

“Nice shots, kid.” Slade and the whole world breathe again, and Jason feels the routine stinging in both eyes. Like if somebody has thrown a handful of sand right into his face. “Are you okay?”

He is, of course. The tears go away pretty soon, and he will be able to use the vision again in several minutes.

“One of the previous training...” Jason tries not to return the strangely straight and demanding glance. “...you’re able to notice me when I was using the _vision_ and moving through the time-stop. Is it a serum effect? I will never be ready to beat you?”

This is the moment of the truth.

Jason knows he is still just a mortal, but he wants to prove that he is more than an abandoned orphan, more than a Lazarus effect. First, to prove to Slade, of course. He wants to show he can be better, faster, and stronger. He wants a reason to exist, a reason to believe he still can do that.

“Why, you didn’t move in the time-stop,” Slade smiles softly, and it seems that the sun has just been waiting for this to happen because at the next moment it shines above black-hair head like the halo of a saint. Jason’s heart misses a beat, and one more, and then catches a phantom spasm. He wants this smile never to end. “The pills, remember? Sedatives always influence the nervous system, it’s okay to lose concentration. If you ask me how it looked like, well...” He scratches his short beard with a dry, static sound, thinking. “...it’s like you’ve disappeared in nowhere and then just fell out of there to reality. And hey, is that a depressed mood again?”

If there could exist a reason to die for, a point of return to before death, it would be this exact moment. When Slade is closer again and touches his hair in a praise caress.

“You’re good, kid. Best of the mortals I’ve seen and definitely my best student. You will beat me, I promise.”

The wind, the smell of the forest, and Slade’s warmth.

If one day Jason is in need to remember he needs something to live for, this is the exact memory.

***

From the very beginning, it’s been a bad idea.

A short trip to the city, not the center district, but also not the very edge where you can find nothing except gas stations and cheap hot-dogs, should shake Jason a bit. At least, Rose believes it should work, and since she doesn’t want to leave him alone at home, she insists on joining her shopping.

First of all, of course, they go to the booking store, where every page of the magazines and books, and whatever else could have pages, absorbed the coffee scent. Strong arabica, the favorite sort of the owner of the bookshop – a nice old woman speaking with Latin accent, her skin is bronze and sun-kissed despite the lack of the sun heat in Gotham last years. She is fond of treating her regular customers with coffee, and Rose takes a cup while Jason hides between bookshelves.

And then everything goes fucking wrong.

‘Wrong’ starts with the fine sound of the wind chime.

“Good evening, detective Grayson! How can I help you?”

“Evening, Mrs. Cervantes. I’d just like to buy some books for my nephew. Hey, Tim, say hello! Don’t be impolite!”

 _Grayson_.

It’s Grayson.

Again. his world breaks like a thin layer of the spring ice upon the river. It’s easy to destroy the icy cover, easy to hurt him, easy to take his breath away.

Jason would fall if his hands, trained already, don’t hang on the book rack. The wood creaks, but suddenly withstands the weight of the body. Spasms attack him, the world goes black and every sound of reality becomes fuzzy.

Grayson, Grayson, Grayson…

“...buddy! Hold on, I’ve got you! C’mon, breathe with me! One-two – and in! Three-four – and out...”

He tries: both breathe and understand who is talking to him; understand why someone is talking to him and what all those words can mean.

“Bud, please, help me help you! One-two – and in!”

The strong scent of the coffee concentrates somewhere near to him.

“R-Rosie…?”

“Hey, cool, don’t talk, ‘right? Just breathe, buddy. I need you to breathe and calm down. And your pills – ugh – I’ve been sure you don’t need ‘em already...” 

The sound of her bag zipper stops for a while when a voice, too familiar, calls for Rose.

“Miss? Everything’s all right? Your friend needs help...”

Grayson, a fucking traitor Grayson…

Rose, not even looking at him. forces Jason to open his mouth and puts a couple of pills, and then makes him drink little round balls with warm coffee. Not at once, but he feels better. And can feel relief when he realizes he sits on the floor in the shop with his back turned to Dick. Thanks to all the gods, he can’t recognize him.

“It’s all right, detective. My brother is just… Nervous. Y’know, panic attacks. It’s better if you just step away, he doesn’t like strangers.”

“How do you know I’m a detective?”

Dick’s voice is sharp, suspicious, but Rose’s doing great. At this very moment, Jason loves her and tries to remember he owes her.

“Mrs. Cervantes called you a detective.”

“My bad. Good luck, Miss, and take care of yourself!”

***

He meets Dick again.

Just a couple of months later, when Slade and Victor decide to ‘play’ in the forest. They give Jason some time, not more than five minutes, to adjust, create the strategy of defeating two super-soldiers, and running to the so-called red zone. Reaching the red zone means victory.

Everything is fine, Jason makes some easy but pretty accurate tripwires so that he can distract one of the two targets. He can outsmart both Slade and Vic, and he is excited to use all his skills, to invent new ways of fighting supersoldiers.

“ _Suka_! Slade, I've lost the track!” Vic stops under the right tree – Jason has taken the spot on the high thick branches to watch how Slade will get into the trap and wait for Victor to come closer. Now it’s the best moment to attack. “I don’t see him!”

Slade’s answer is distant, barely heard. Maybe, the enhanced senses help Victor but fail him too when Jason knocks him over in a fast jump from the tree.

Just one shot – and Vic whines and curses him – his left knee is broken now, and with hands fixed behind Victor can be counted as a neutralized target.

Next one – Slade.

His steps are silent, the fallen leaves don’t betray him. Bushes around crack and whisper with too dry branches. Tiny sparrows fly away, frightened by someone’s presence.

“Slade…?”

Body reaction fails him when he is suddenly hidden behind the wide back, and at the next moment, Jason hears the voice. Not Wilson’s.

With his face pressed between shoulder blades, and his hands squeeze Slade’s military uniform. The scent of sweat, gunpowder, and wet soil become a new trigger – a trigger to remain in reality, a trigger that helps him to overcome the freezing and scaring feeling of the panic attack.

“Training your new apprentice, Wilson?”

“None of your business, Grayson. I don’t remember I’ve sent a postcard with an invitation to my territory.”

With one hand behind, Slade holds Jason. Touches his side, telling him not to move. And Jason obeys. He neither wants to see Dick, nor he wants to show himself.

“Titans were attacked recently. Your work?”

“Not interested in kids’ clubs.” Slade’s scent is strong and calming. He just needs to close his eyes, to make a full breath, and nothing becomes valuable. Nothing, except the woods, except the warmth, except Slade.

He’s not here.

He’s not here…

“Tim was hurt! Rachel could die!”

“I don’t care, Grayson. And I strongly recommend you get away right now and never come back without a special invitation card.”

“But–”

“My last warning, birdie. If you don’t go, you will _never_ be able to walk. Am I clear?”

Dick goes away. Grumbling, but not trying to argue with Slade. He tells something mocking, something about shy apprentices-future-killers, but for the first time his voice, his words do not touch Jason. They do not reach him, because he has the best shield against everything.

He doesn’t ask for this, but Slade turns around to hug him tightly, wordless.

***

A new bad idea comes to him, and Jason doesn’t even try to think it over.

“Did you have relations with Dick?”

Slade stands up and freezes at the spot. His blue eye narrows as if he tries to read something between lines as if he wants to see through Jason and know the true motive of this question. It’s bad.

Very bad.

“You don’t want to know the truth, kid,” Slade speaks slowly, and every word hurts Jason somewhere behind his heart, like a backstab. His chest goes into spasms again, and he doesn’t understand if it's connected with his panic attacks.

It just hurts, and that’s all.

“Once I was obsessed with some ideas, and Grayson was obsessed with the truth. And it happened that our obsessions... crossed. Nothing more.”

And Slade goes away, leaving Jason in the dining part on the second floor. Leaves him tons of broken glass pieces tearing him apart from the inside.

Batman is again between him and the whole world.

Jason is not the first, is not real, he is just a substitute.

Once, and forever?

It hurts.

It's the night before Jason’s seventeenth birthday. He takes all his pills at once in a desperate attempt to ease the pain.

Nothing helps.

***

“I have advice for you, and I hope you will follow it.”

Vic puts a bowl of light soup in front of him and takes a place by Jason’s left side.

It’s been a while since the last suicide attempt, but Jason is still weak and he can’t take the too oily or too tough meal.

“First, do _not_ let Rose know you’re in love with Slade.”

Jason coughs, choked.

“Second, don’t become a self-harming kiddo. You will have chances if you prove to him you can be equal. Jason, I’m not blind. If I see your feelings, then anyone can, get it? Just… Be careful, _patsan_.”

This is Victor – Russian, unpredictable, too soft, and always helping.

And too insightful at the very random moments.

***

But Rosie knows already.

They have an unpleasant conversation at deep night when Jason pours some tea and takes cookies. Their conversation is not really bad, but it frightens Jason. He feels Rose’s anxiety, feels her concern. He knows already she loves her father and she doesn’t want him to be in any kind of trouble.

“...you’re a teen, and it’s okay to like someone, bud. I know what it is like, and – trust me – I don’t mind if you like people...y’know, of the same gender as yours. It’s your choice. If you want, I can help you with any questions you have. Or Vic can, or even _he_ can. But, Jay, he is my father and he raised you. For him, you are a kid, a boy he has adopted. Just imagine how he will feel when he discovers your feelings! It’s gonna be great confusion. Be a smart boy, Jay.”

Jason wants to be a smart boy.

But he can’t.

It hurts again.

***

A new mission. A long one and Slade says it’s going to be the last mission, and then he wants to have a pretty long vacation. To have some rest, to relax. And Rose is finally happy to hear that.

Afghanistan, the hotspots.

Several countries have opposite interests in this particular Islamic land, and Slade – as well as some other supersoldiers – is signed again for a peacekeeper mission. But not Victor.

“Too close to Russia.” He frowns. “If I go, there will be a greater conflict. I’m considered as a war criminal, remember?”

Slade is ready to go early in the morning, it’s about 4:00, and Jason doesn't sleep too. He shows himself up in the hallway just at the moment when Slade opens the door.

Seven months, this is the contract.

A seven-month mission.

They will not see each other for more than half a year.

Jason needs to tell all those things, and, well, be that as it may. Too hard to hold everything inside, too hard to fight with the pain, with death whirlwinds of emotions. They are overwhelming, and he has nobody to listen to him.

“Slade, I… I need something to tell. It’s important, I–”

Slade Wilson.

He has always been that incredibly strong and grinning, smiling against any pain, smiling at the blood, and supporting whatever happened. A person to be close to him and never accuse.

His savior, and his mentor.

Too complicated.

“I know, Jason.” A wide hand buries its fingers in Jason’s hair, caresses the white strand, and shares the warmth, erasing any coherent thought. “I know everything, Jason. Don't force yourself, okay?”

Wonderful person, so understanding, too soft again.

Of course, Slade knows. Will there exist anything connected with Jason, not open for Wilson? Jason doubts it’s possible. 

“Take care of my scarf you’ve stolen. The kufiya, black and white, it’s my favorite one.”

Lump in his throat doesn’t let Jason answer, he just nods, afraid to move, Afraid to end this touch. Not able to end the eye contact.

“And put it on when you meet me. I bet it will suit you.”

“Seven months, Slade...”

“Not too long for you and me, isn’t it? I wish you could meet me when I return.”

Jason will miss him, he already does when the door shuts behind Wilson.

It hurts, but now – it’s different.

***

Slade makes a call two weeks later.

They have difficulties. They need to stay in Afghanistan for a year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Suka - in Russian, it means 'bitch', and it's often used as an interjection.  
> *Patsan - in Russian it means just an informal and sometimes rude address to a boy


End file.
